Rumors: Yankees Want Kerry Wood Back But Not At Closer Money

Yankees talked to Kerry Wood‘s agents today. Interested in having him back, but Cashman says he “won’t compete with closer money.”

This is what we’ve thought all along, the Yankees want him back, but they are not going to spend nearly $10 million to do it. We haven’t heard either way if Wood would be willing to come back at setupman money to play for the Yankees. He’ll certainly get an offer to close somewhere else.

The only thing we do know is that the Yankees were going to offer him arbitration only to pull it back at the last minute. That likely means that they got the feeling that he would have accepted and they would have been stuck paying him a boatload of money. If the desire to retain him is real, so is the desire to pay him very little money.

There are fans that want him back so badly that they say pay him whatever it will take. Remember, he’s essentially the Nick Johnson of pitchers. The last thing the Yankees need is to get burned on a $10 million investment.

Find another starter first. Right now they are trying to replace Vazquez. (I know, not difficult but you are still looking for someone). Pettitte may need to be replaced. No guarantee on Lee coming to NY. You can't just ditch people without having a replacement.

It is ironic that Prior could be signed to a minor league deal as Wood may be leaving, isn't it?

At A.J.'s years and cost, he isn't going anywhere. Take a lesson from what happened with Pavano. The Yanks were stuck with him for the duration of the contract. Same with A.J. Years + money = can't be moved. People are quick to jump on the "Yanks buy pennants" bandwagon but never talk about the other side of the coin, which is bad contracts that the Yanks get stuck with if they aren't panning out. Pavano, maybe A.J's if he doesn't turn it around, Igawa, …. throw in Giambi there too. If the Yanks could have dumped Giambi, don't you think they would have?

Two or three weeks ago we were getting great comments all day every day. This week these are the type of dumbass comments we get once or twice a day. What happened? Obvious I'm not talking about Mike S.